We Can Do Better

Even though I work from home and try to minimize driving, I still feel guilty every time I drive my car. Rather than being part of the solution, I know I'm part of the problem.

I WISH I owned an electric car that was charged nightly with renewable energy. The thing is, we have the technology to do that, and we are close to making it economically feasible. If we could throw just a few billion into research, I'm certain we could make it work. And a few billion dollars is a lot? Well, I understand we spend $1 billion a day in Afghanistan. And, honestly, I think we are making new enemies there as fast as we can kill them.

I WISH we could end the violence in this world. I know that we have the maturity to do it. I find all the violence repulsive -- it just says that we are better dressed cavemen. We've probably come a long way from the Middle Ages, but we have a long ways to go.

I try to have compassion for my fellow humans, the wildlife, and my world, but it's never enough. I try to help others, but I never feel like I'm doing enough. So, the guilt never goes away. I am tormented because I always feel like I should be doing MORE.

As a child I remember watching with fascination the elevator on Star Trek. It started out slow, and soon it was going at full speed, with the lights from each floor whizzing by a little window. That's how I feel my life is going. The trips around the Sun are getting faster and faster. I want to put the life I've been given to good use, and I feel like I'm running out of time.

My employer has downsized and my workload has doubled, so I feel that I'm always living with a pile of bricks on me. Gone are those 37.5 hour work weeks, which I enjoyed for so long, and which allowed me to give a massive amount of energy and time to volunteer work. Now, I'm always drained. I help out when and where I can, but for the most part the life and vitality has been sucked out of me. Every day I go to work I must fight for sheer survival. The recession has been brutal to my employer. I still don't know if we will survive or not. So, everyday I'm hoping for signs of an economic upturn to get the pressure off ME, even though a robust economy will again put the pressure on the environment. As the economy improves, the bulldozers will begin flattening forests again, sending little animals fleeing, with no place to go.

And thus, this is the great irony of my life. When the economy is bad, the environment is given a rest, but there is more pressure on all of us to survive. So, maybe, in effect, this is the one time when I'm really helping the environment. Because I am taking the pain. I am working harder than I've ever worked in my life, and 60-hour work weeks are now the norm. But, it's grinding me down, and I simply don't have the energy to do my share in the fight.

Right now, my activist friends are trying to stop two new proposed coal plants in Georgia. This is a just cause, and I wish I could do more. The Old Guard is used to doing business the way they've always done it, and are resisting hard. The old mode of thinking is that we run our dishwasher, enjoy our curling irons, and heating pads, while coal smoke billows into the air, warms our planet, and alters our entire ecosystem. And each day, hundreds of species are unable to adapt to the rapid change, and become extinct. We kill so that we can be comfortable. It makes no sense.

So, I believe we can do better. We have to end this stupid political partisanship, and we have to find politicians who respond to reason, and we have to team up to find solutions. China, with their one-party system, is getting way ahead of us. Wake up, Americans. WAKE UP!!!